The ICANN67 Public Meeting officially opened on March 9. It is the first conference in the history of the corporation held exclusively using remote participation. The conference program is substantially reduced while for technical reasons interpreting is only available into two languages, French and Spanish. The conference has two tracks and will run until March 12.
During his remarks to the conference participants, ICANN CEO and President Goran Marby thanked everybody for their patience, support and understanding. He spoke about the main problems of the modern internet that are in the focus of ICANN67, including personal data protection, growing threats for the domain name system and engagement of interested parties in the discussion of issues overseen by ICANN. Additionally, Goran Marby announced that the final draft of the operating plan for the 2020-2021 fiscal year as well as the operating and financial plan for 2020-2025 are finished.
“I am looking forward to being part of something unprecedented and new. We have a unique opportunity to demonstrate to the world the internet’s ability to bring people together in the face of problems. The world around us is constantly changing and it is important that ICANN is prepared, ready and can act quickly [in response] to whatever new situation or challenge arises,” Goran Marby stressed.
Goran Marby concluded his remarks by calling participants to work during the virtual ICANN meeting with the same level of enthusiasm as they usually show offline, and expressed hope that they all would be able to see each other in person in the not too distant future.
ICANN meetings are held three times a year attracting attendees from over 150 countries. More than 100 of these countries already have confirmed cases of coronavirus. The remote format of the current conference was organized due to the concerns for the health of all ICANN67 participants, ICANN employees and the hosting party’s staff.
For many years, ICANN has successfully organized online broadcasts from its events and offered remote access to some representatives of the domain community. But it is for the first time that the corporation has had to hold such a large-scale event completely in the online format. Based on the first days of the meeting, the corporation has lived up to this technical challenge.
Management and workers of the Coordination Center for TLD.RU/.РФ are also participating in the online conference remotely. Stay tuned.
